Hell or High Water: Twenty-First Century Western

Hell or High Water flew completely under my radar this year until awards season arrived and I saw this movie receiving all sorts of acclaim. Intrigued, I finally watched it, and within the first twenty minutes, I was a fan.

The first thing to note about this movie is how funny it is. Written by Taylor Sheridan, the dialogue and random tangents are a sheer delight from start to finish. There are jokes about how hard it is to rob a bank in Texas now that everyone has a conceal-and-carry permit and can shoot right back at you. There's a rancher herding cattle in the middle of the road who bemoans that this is still a job in the twenty-first century. And there's a waitress in a diner who goes on for ages about that idiot from New York who showed up that one time and tried to order trout when all she serves is steak. Does that have anything to do with the plot of the movie? No. Does that make it any less delightful? Nope.

The actual plot centers around two brothers, Toby and Tanner (the delightful Chris Pine and Ben Foster). Their mother died recently and left her ranch to Toby's two sons. Unfortunately, the ranch was mortgaged, and unless the men can find a way to pay the bank loan, they will lose the ranch and the newly-discovered oil that has been found on the property that will guarantee a lifetime of prosperity for Toby's sons. Tanner has just gotten out of prison and is an expert bank robber, so of course, they do the only thing that makes sense - they start robbing branches of the Texas Midlands bank, which is the bank that holds the mortgage. Paying the bank back with money they stole from it? That's Texas justice.

Jeff Bridges plays the curmudgeonly sheriff who is a week away from retirement and must figure out who's responsible for this sudden rash of bank robberies. Together with Alberto (Gil Birmingham), his half-Mexican, half-Native American partner (who comes in for an eye-watering deluge of racial jokes and takes it all in his stride), they play a captivating cat-and-mouse game with the bank-robbing brothers, until things come to a head in true Western fashion.

Hell or High Water is a brilliant movie, witty, cinematic, gorgeous, and gripping. Set in the lonely expanses of West Texas, it will make you yearn for those landscapes and some barbecue. It perfectly captures what it means to be a working-class Texan and the sense of family, honor, and justice that can motivate people to do crazy things for the sake of their loved ones. Directed impeccably by David Mackenzie and shot beautifully by cinematographer Giles Nuttgens, this is a theatrical masterpiece that will be a highlight of your award show viewing. Don't miss it.